81- Prep Time is Busted

Doom mulled over Mason’s words for a while, and Mason was content with silently waiting. The two sat like that for over a minute before Doom finally asked resentfully, "Do you have any leads?"

Doom clearly did not like asking for help, and could see that Mason was waiting for that.

Mason smiled brightly at the question. "What, the challenge scares you? Your first instinct is to ask for your master’s help?"

Doom slightly raised a hand, and a green rune made of magical energy manifested from thin air. It did not do anything, but the threat was clear.

Mason grinned, ignoring it as he relented, "Alright, alright, no need to come to blows. It wouldn’t look good for me to bully my student, and I don’t want my dojo to get ruined. I do happen to have some ideas."

Doom lowered his hand, the rune fizzling out. Mason explained, "Well, first, what you really need right now is to understand the Dao, because even if you manage to push your Three Treasures to the limit, it will be meaningless if you don’t have a proper grasp of the Dao. You must push at least one Concept to its limit."

Seeing Doom was listening carefully, Mason continued, "If there’s one thing I can’t take away from you, it’s your intellect, so I’ll start warning you about the obvious unsavory method: absorption."

"Absorption?"

Mason did not know whether Doom was feigning his surprise or not, but he was certain the mad genius would have thought about it at some point, so he nodded. "Stealing the Three Treasures from others, using them as food for your own. I know of at least one spell that works following a similar concept. I’m telling you right now, that is no proper path. The point of the Awakening Realm is to strip your Three Treasures of their innate limits, and absorbing the energies of someone else will only layer their own limits on top of your own. Moreover, the Three Treasures’ energies of others will never be truly yours, because everyone has their own signatures. This would only ever lead to a quantitative increase, never a qualitative one. And most of all, if you do start hunting people down to steal their Chi, I will kill you."

"Anything else?" Doom asked, looking unfazed by the threat. Again, Doom was hard to figure out with his mask, so Mason could not tell whether he held any interest in the absorption path.

"I don’t know enough about magic to give you proper counsel, but I do believe it to be the key to your advancement, if it is even possible. For example, Alchemy might be a viable path. Exocentric Magic might also offer some possibilities, though I’m sure you are already aware of the dangers that come with dealing with dimensional rulers. Lastly, technology might also be of help. I started treading that path with your best friend, so maybe if you ask Reed nicely, he will help you."

Doom did not react in the slightest this time, simply getting up. With a wave of his hand, a green portal opened in mid-air, and he stepped through it, only leaving behind a few parting words: "Doom shall be back."

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Mason let out a snicker as the portal closed, wondering whether Doom would actually manage to break through or not.

As for the morality of teaching someone like Doom… It did not bother Mason in the slightest. The official, grand-sounding explanation would be that the sun did not discriminate, and nurtured all equally, be they poisonous plants or beautiful flowers. It would be partly true too, as Mason truly wished for his teachings to spread all over.

But if he were to be completely honest, Mason enjoyed having competition. It had nothing to do with the ‘loneliness at the peak’ from Xianxia novels, there were plenty of people far more powerful than him still, and presumably some he would never surpass. And if Mason wanted a good fight, he doubted the Hulk would ever disappoint.

But Mason also liked being the first, and right now, there was absolutely no competition. A good part of why he wanted his teachings to spread everywhere was to find a supreme talent who could pressure him.

Doom was a good candidate, and he would have been perfect, if only he had not started learning magic. Still, if Doom did manage to overcome this natural roadblock, then he surely would represent a good enough challenge.

Of course, there were limits. Mason had been truthful when he told Doom that if he turned to the ‘demonic’ path of stealing the Three Treasures of others, he would hunt him down and kill him. Perhaps Mason alone would not be sufficient in his current state, but he certainly could get the help he would need.

Similarly, Mason took a rather personal responsibility for all martial artists. If some started behaving like monsters, then Mason would personally put them down.

After all, the Doom of this reality, at least at this point in time, had never done anything truly egregious. His rule of Latveria was a hot topic, as he did rule over them with an iron fist, but he also offered them far better conditions than they ever had. If Mason was truly so self-righteous as to take problem over Doom’s rule, then a country like Wakanda would fall first.

After all, the rulers of Wakanda all descended from the same line for thousands of years, forming the longest-lasting dynasty, with power never leaving their hands. They, too, offered great conditions for their people, but as far as freedom went, they were quite restricted as well. Not to mention they had never contributed much to the rest of Africa, even as they got colonized left and right.

Again, Mason did not care, but that was to say that Doom’s rule of Latveria alone was far from being enough to classify him as a villain, much less a monster. Mason was also aware that Doom did some pretty terrible stuff to his people in the comics, but those remained comics at the end of the day, with different writers bringing different views of the characters in their runs. As far as this world went, from what Mason had seen, Doom remained relatively tame.

Of course, that remained relative. Taking the incident where they had clashed alone, the Hulk’s rampage had caused several deaths, which Doom was thus directly responsible for.

Even that carried its own complexity, though. It was certainly wrong, and if Mason were an all-powerful ruler, Doom would be in prison, but Mason was not. The only punishment Mason could realistically administer to anyone right now was death, and Doom certainly did not deserve that at this point.

Doom’s crimes were not born merely out of malicious intent. In a way, Doom had never meant for anyone to die, he simply did not care about collateral damage. Bad in its own way, but far different from a crazed murderer.

Besides, Mason did believe in the concept of reformation. In the case of Doom, Mason did not delude himself into thinking he could fundamentally change him, but the main drive behind Doom’s crimes was his constant desire for self-improvement and power, as well as proving himself superior to Reed.

By constantly poking at Doom’s pride and showing himself to be better at cultivation than Doom, even while helping him, Mason hoped to shift Doom’s obsession over from Reed to himself.

Perhaps that was Mason’s so-called savior complex acting up, but he did believe that Doom could do a lot of good if properly guided.

There was also some measure of cautiousness in his attitude with Doom, as while Mason did believe he could destroy Doom in a small room like the dojo, in any other context Mason likely would not even get a single hit in. The same result as if Mason faced any other strong Sorcerers.

Mason might be the Honored One, Sorcerers were busted, even when one took into account the dimensional advantage of Mason’s Chi. There were simply too many spells that resulted in instant death. Besides, the most dangerous Sorcerers were those with preparation.